Heritage Outline

Here is the outline for the five paragraph heritage essay.

I. Introduction - 3 to 4 sentences

A. Intro sentence: a question, subject words, quote, or story

B. Thesis: A sentence summarizing your three topics

II. Body- 3 paragraphs

A. 1st paragraph- Where you are from and the story behind that

B. 2nd paragraph- Any other information about your ancestors family, lifestyle, government, schooling, etc.

C. 3rd paragraph- Traditions, heirlooms, and recipes

III. Closing- 3 to 4 sentences

A. Reworded thesis

B. Closing sentence or two about your future and how your heritage will be a part of that

October Newsletter

I have included the standards for some of the activities. If you would like a full list of the standards for an activity, I would be happy to e-mail them to you.
CROSS CURRICULAR WRITING

This month Miss Kendzicky and I have teamed up on an assignment. All three grades are writing a 5 paragraph heritage essay. I am helping the students break the essay into parts and organize their writing. All three grades will be turning in a 25 question interview and will do peer editing on Friday, October 16th. The sixth grade will then turn in the essay to me and to Miss Kendzicky on Tuesday, October 20th. I will grade on the writing traits, and she will focus on the content. The seventh grade will be presenting their essay orally in the form of a presentation the week of the 20th. The eighth grade will only be turning in and presenting the heritage project to Miss Kendzicky.

WEEKLY REMINDERS (standards 6.6.5, 6.6.4, 7.6.8, 8.6.5, 8.6.6 and 8.6.7)
We will have our first Weekly Reminder quest the week of October 12. It will cover the first eight reminders. The test is four parts: correct the error, fill in the blank, choose the right word, and memorize and use one of the reminders correctly. Each quarter we will have a Weekly Reminder quest and it will build in number until the end of the year when there will be over thirty Weekly Reminders.

DIAGRAMMING, DOG, GRAMMAR MINUTES, AND 6+1 TRAIT EVALUATIONS

We continue to alternate weekly the above activities. Whenever it is a diagramming week, we learn new additions to the diagram and have a quest on the Friday of that week. DOG and Grammar Minutes are done in class and turned in on Fridays.

6th GRADE

WRITING

*Heritage essay due on October 20th

*We will be writing prayers for a class prayer book. I have been doing this for over five years and it is a notable way of crossing religion and faith with writing.

GRAMMAR

*Prepositions have been very difficult for us. We are currently wrapping up Chapter 20 on phrases and clauses. There will be a test over this chapter.

*Pronouns and nouns will be the next part of speech to tackle. This covers standard 6.6.2 and chapter 14 in the big yellow book.

7th GRADE

SPEAKING

*Heritage essay presentations

WRITING

*There will be a test over genres

*We will be writing a pretend dialogue with someone.

GRAMMAR

*We are continuing to finish up on the lengthy punctuation chapter. Commas took a great deal of time and we even had a bonus requiz. We will be learning how to write dialogue and use apostrophes, hyphens, and dashes. (7.6.6 and 7.6.7)

8th GRADE

WRITING

*We are continuing to write a script for a story.

SPEAKING

*We will be reading the script by Daryn Perry entitled The Other Side of Life. It is a story about a young man who must change the lives of five people in thirty days or he will die. There will be activities and a test for this. (8.7.10, 8.7.2, 8.3.2, 8.3.4, 8.3.5, 8.3.8, 8.3.9, and 7.7.5)

GRAMMAR

*We finished the chapter on effective sentences and will be moving on to chapter 20 covering phrases and standard 8.6.8.

October Family Problem

Since many of you have been hounding me for the new family problem, here it is.

The month of October brings thoughts of cemeteries (since they're spooky like Halloween). Cemeteries are full of gravestones with interesting epitaphs. An epitaph is a short phrase or poem about the dead person. Some are very touching and others can make you laugh. An example of one would be, "Here lies an atheist. All dressed up and no place to go" or one that is more serious, "As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, you too will be. So be prepared to follow me."

My challenge to you and your family is to make up epitaphs for yourselves or if that is too depressing write generic ones (no one in particular). You could be even more creative and pick cartoon, movie, or book characters and write epitaphs for them.

You need at least three epitaphs. You should simply draw tombstones and write the names and epitaphs on each. These are due by the end of the month. I can't wait to see some of your creative tombstone sayings.